About | The Alchemist's Lab

Jaitesha Hanson, LMHC, smiling in front of her bookshelf

Credentials & Clinical Background

Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) – Florida
Clinical experience across outpatient, telehealth, and specialty settings
Neurodiversity & Assessment Specialist supporting neuroaffirming assessment practices and clinician training
Specialized focus in autism, ADHD, masking, sensory needs, trauma overlap, and complex presentations
Certified in AutPlay Therapy and Geek Therapy
TMS Therapy Certified through BrainsWay and Neurostar
Published author and community impact award recipient

What I Train On

ADHDAutismDifferential diagnosis & conceptualizationMasking & code-switchingTrauma & neurodevelopment overlapNervous system & regulation patternsSpecial interests & play-based approaches

About

Jaitesha Hanson

LMHC · Founder, The Alchemist's Lab

I'm Jaitesha "Jai" Hanson: licensed mental health counselor, neurodiversity specialist, educator, creator, and resident mad scientist. I built The Alchemist's Lab around a simple observation: the cases that don't fit anywhere aren't unsolvable. They just require a different kind of looking.

My work centers on complex neurodivergent presentations, specifically the ones where standard approaches have already been tried and something keeps not fitting. High-masking clients. Diagnostic overlaps. Cases where the therapist has done everything right and the case still isn't moving.

Pattern recognition is the foundation of everything I do. Not just "what diagnosis does this match," but what underlying system of processing, regulation, and lived experience is producing this particular presentation, in this particular person.

That way of looking travels. In consultation, it's clinician-to-clinician, and your client stays with you. In workshops, it's games, frameworks, and pop culture used on purpose. With organizations, it's the intake form, the assessment, or the workflow that quietly wasn't built with neurodivergent brains in mind.

Clarity creates the shift. Not force.

Many clinicians feel stuck not because the work isn't being done, but because the underlying patterns haven't been clearly identified. Clarity is what lets the work finally move.

Outside the Lab

I’m also neurodivergent — ADHD and autistic — which means I don’t just study these systems. I live them.

Growing up, I struggled to find support that truly understood how my brain worked. Not because clinicians didn’t care, but because our training systems were not built with neurodivergence in mind. That lived experience shaped why this work exists.

Outside of clinical work, I’m usually creating, gaming, gardening, spending time in nature, or building ideas into real systems. Experiment. Create. Transform is not just a tagline. It is pretty much how my brain organizes the world.

Jai holding a pink cake with "still experimenting!" written on the plate — Still experimenting.

Jai laughing in delight with an iguana in a tiny straw hat perched on her shoulder — Off duty. Made a friend.

Thor Thunder, a red and white husky in a red bandana, lying in the grass — Thor Thunder, head of Lab security.

A cluster of cherry tomatoes, one ripe and red, growing in a patio container garden — Experiment results: tomatoes.

Refer a Case →Bring the Lab to Your Team →LinkedIn

Proprietary Frameworks

The tools behind the work.

REM

Regulation & Engagement Map

A framework for understanding how neurodivergent clients regulate internally, and how their engagement patterns in session, in relationships, and in daily life reveal the underlying nervous system logic driving the presentation.

PEM

Processing & Expression Map

A framework for mapping how individuals process information, experiences, and emotions internally versus externally, and what that reveals about regulation capacity, internal cost, and the disconnect between surface behavior and lived experience.

MAA

Masking-Aware Assessment

A pattern-based assessment approach designed for high-masking presentations, where traditional measures underperform because the client is skilled at appearing functional in ways that obscure what's actually happening underneath.

A note on the frameworks: REM, PEM, and MAA are original Lab frameworks, taught in Lab trainings and still being studied and refined through the Research Division. Organizations can license them by agreement, on the Lab's terms. Ownership stays with the Lab.

Speaking & Media

Where the Lab has shown up.

Conference Presentations

The Black ADHD Experience Conference · October 2026When Survival Looks Like ComplianceUnderstanding Black ADHD, masking, and code-switching through a pattern lens.

Autism in Black® Autistic Adults Summit · September 2026Rediscovering the Self Beneath SurvivalIdentity, masking, culture, and the parts of self that stayed beneath adaptation.

TAGGS · 2026The Sims Clinical SandboxThe Sims as a clinical sandbox for pattern recognition, case conceptualization, and intervention design.

Podcasts

Voices in Health & Wellness · 2026Inside Geek Therapy: Creativity, Identity, and Neuroaffirming CareWith Dr. Andrew Greenland.

Unapologetic Leadership · 2026Faith-Driven Self-Leadership for Neurodivergence and AutismWith Cory Dunham.

Black Girl Diagnosed · 2026Guest episodeDiagnosis, neurodivergence, and lived and professional experience.

Clinician Education

Clinician in-service series · 2026Partnering With Amy: Understanding the Survival BrainOne of three in-service trainings on neurodivergent presentation, differential conceptualization, masking, and nervous system patterns.

The Alchemist's Lab · 2026Original Lab workshopsObsession, The Sims Clinical Sandbox, and live clinician Lab Drop-Ins. See the Archive.

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